Closed Platforms/Chat Clients

Vlare

This is just a tribute to what I think it was one of the most decent alternative video platforms ever existed.

For those who never knew about it or never got to use it, it was basically a video platform but with some cool features from classic YouTube, such as full channel customization (colors, backgrounds, GIFs, etc) combined with a modern design, as well as video responses and friends system.

It was created by Jan, developer of the most known “old YouTube” clones VidLii and BitView (which he no longer owns) and launched around 2018. Was used to be popular during 2019 back when YouTube announced COPPA and everyone back then thought it was “the end of YouTube” (and here we still are…).

From what little I remember, long before the platform shut down around 2020, there was a time when the “uploader” was down for maintenance for more than two months and no one could upload any new content to the site (except people who had scheduled videos much before the maintenance), until, just days after they fixed it, the developers received a DMCA takedown that would take down one of the project’s servers and the website temporarily closed.
Some time later, the project was handed over to new owners, who began asking for donations on Patreon until, for some reason, they came to the conclusion that maintaining a video site of such size was becoming too expensive for them, so they finally decided to shut down the website for good in 2021, eradicating all user-uploaded content in the process.
They have been announcing over the years (and even recently in 2025 IIRC) that they will host an archive containing all user content, but so far they haven't done so.

RIP

Dang that site didn’t last long and I wish I knew about it when it was still online. Looks way better than Youtube for sure, RIP. I’ve heard of VidLii before making this forum however I’ve never used the platform before.